


All Hidden Things

by Measured



Category: Rune Factory (Video Games)
Genre: Community: fic_promptly, F/F, Fluff, Food, Love Potion/Spell
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-29
Updated: 2013-10-29
Packaged: 2017-12-30 20:26:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,802
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1023016
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Measured/pseuds/Measured
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Every witch knows that love potions are a bad idea, except to Marian, who wants to make one more than anything.</p>
            </blockquote>





	All Hidden Things

**Author's Note:**

> fic_promptly: Author‘s Choice, Author‘s Choice, Every witch knows that love potions are a bad idea.

To say that Marian was precocious was an understatement. Grandmother often joked that it was not only her middle name, but her true first name–for all true witches kept their names hidden, keeping only nicknames that passed through the years, and other things that passed as names.

As soon as she could read, she learned her first hex by pulling out the books hidden in the back, for she just _knew_ they'd be juicy. In her experience, all hidden things were the best.

Poor Colette had hooves for three days until her grandmother found just the right potion to undo it. And not even a month later, she'd taught the facts of life to every child in the town, complete with diagrams from another book at the back. She had to eat tomato dishes for months, all paid for by the families and gifts from Colette's family.

Now they were just little anecdotes, maybe a bit funnier to her than the people who had gotten hooves, or more anatomical knowledge than they'd wanted, but funny still.

In her life, Marian had more failures than successes, but she rarely let it get her down. After all, there was a seed of success in every exploded potion, or salve turned to poison. Next time she would do better, and she would keep on practicing until she could heal the whole world, even if she had to poison the whole world to do it.

*

Every witch knew that love potions were a bad idea. Or at least, that was what grandmother always told her. But where other people saw boundaries and lines and fences, Marian saw possibilities. Yes, maybe she'd accidentally (or on purpose) turn the person into her drugged slave, but just think if she could splice that spell and potion, turn it until she could turn the body in on itself, command the sickness to leave in a way that even their deepest selves couldn't resist?

Love potions weren't offered in the shop. In fact, all she knew was that they would require more skill, and such rare ingredients that she couldn't hope to simply throw one together with some herbs and a little spell. She suspected there was another way, but grandmother's book was full of suspicious tears that just happened to come around whenever there was a really good potion that she could test out on anyone and make real progress with. 

Shara had seen an Emery flower once, but they were so rare, so expensive, that even if she saved for an entire year, she wouldn't even get close to being able to afford it. But every time she got gold for making potions or running the store, she'd stock just a little bit away. 

She really had to research a way to clone her gold. She'd work on that as soon as she finally made the panacea hers.

*  
That goal came a lot closer the day Micah came in, asking for an appraisal.

"Can you identify this?" Micah said. He held out a little golden potion. She opened up the bottle, her heart racing with anticipation. _Could it be? Was this really be the love potion she'd waited for?_

"Oh, that? It's nothing important—you certainly won't get any gold from it. Oh, by the way, since you were so nice to let me see that, why don't you have a free cup of tea? It's really warm and tasty!"

"Oh, free tea? I'd love it," Micah said, smiling wide.

Even though she'd drugged him five times last week, he never seemed to remember. Or maybe, he just didn't care. She had to admire his willingness to be drugged for the sake of science.

She pulled out her most expensive potion, made by her grandmother, so guaranteed to work, and a bunch of fertilizer and cough drops, too. It might not have been a fair trade, but this was one case where the ends justified the means. 

*

She'd been long trying to figure out which would be the best test subject, who would best help her figure out how to turn this love potion into a future panacea. Of course, it always came back to Colette.

She'd baked up some cake, with a bit of bamboo rice from fresh bamboo shoots plucked straight on the outset of Privera Forest. Marian hummed as she worked, setting the table just so. Everything had to be perfect, after all. It was a momentous occasion that would put her that much closer to her dreams, and it was made all that much sweeter for Colette being a part of it.

She was brimming with excitement when Colette finally showed, waving from the front door.

"Heya!" Colette called

Colette had always been her favorite little guinea pig, her best friend, and best test subject all in one. Seeing her smiling there, with salmon rice stains on her apron, pieces of sticky rice hidden in folds of her skirt, and the always fresh scent of baking bread clinging to her clothes. 

"Welcome! I made this special, just for you, Colette," Marian said, with a toothy smile. Colette remained one of the very few people who wouldn't run at simply the sight of a grin, a laugh or just the sight of her.

"Oh, wow! I really missed bamboo rice," Colette said. Without any further question, she dug into the meal, stuffing big spoonfuls of sticky rice into her mouth, and chewing furiously.

She hadn't touched the tea at all.

A sudden thought gripped her—Colette dissolving into nothing, Colette losing herself in a blank-eyed stare, to a place where even she couldn't reach her.

She grabbed the tea and downed it herself, feeling a hot flush come across her cheeks. It was like Colette was bathed in a golden glow, somehow cuter and more bright than she had ever been. The drops had tasted sweet on her tongue, but this was no good. She couldn't be a good test subject, now that she was in no state to take notes.

"–I accidentally switched them, and mine had milk in it," Marian said.

"Blech," Colette said. "Thanks for saving me, Marian!"

Seeing Colette's warm smile made her feel gooey inside, like she'd never looked at her friend before. Not _really_ looked to see how cute she was, from her tiny-but-strong body, to her endless appetite, there was nothing Marian really disliked about her...except when she ran away without taking her medicine.

"No problem, I'll always save you, because we're...friends."

The last word sounded hollow for the first time.

"Yep, great friends!" Colette said.

"Close friends," Marian said. "Really, really close."

Colette looked up, completely confused, and Marian only blushed harder. 

*

Marian fell back on the bed, clutching a blue and white striped pillow to her chest.

"How am I ever going to be a great witch if I can't even bring myself to drug my best friend with a love potion, and make her into my eternal guinea pig-slash-wife?" 

Her grandmother stroked Marian's blue hair, straightening each thick, uneven tress and putting them back into the pigtails they'd escaped from. 

"Hee hee....it isn't _that_ potent. In fact, you could say it just reveals what is already there to begin with," her grandmother said.

Marian abruptly sat up. "You mean, all this time, I thought it was one step closer to the great Panacea, and it wasn't even that good? Awww, then why'd you hide it?"

"Because you'd use it on everyone just to see what happens," her grandmother said sternly. She continued more softly, after a second "You'll learn. These things take time, Marian."

"I know, I'll make it twice as potent, so potent that the world will be healed by the power of _love_ —or die trying!"

Her grandmother sighed. "Now, Marian. Why don't you just court her naturally, without the aid of magic?"

"But–" Marian protested.

"You can never be truly satisfied with a love you had to get underhandedly."

Marian looked up. She rubbed her hands together, grinning with the sort of smile which made little children go running. "I know! I'll make Bamboo rice, and Salmon Rice, I'll cook for her, and I'll win her over _forever!_ No one can resist the power of my cooking, especially my tea!"

"Not the tea," her grandmother said.

"...okay, cooking without tea," Marian said in disappointment.

She could always count on Micah to enjoy her tea, anyways.

"Hee Hee...Don't forget to tell her how you feel," her grandmother said.

Marian rushed to write out her plan. She already knew the recipes of what Colette loved. Now, all she had to do was treat her like a princess, sweep her off her feet, cook for her... and all those other romance novel things she'd once at a young age read _for science_. And then taught all the other children about quivering womanhoods and pulsing desire, until she was grounded to eat a whole lot of tomatoes again.

*

She'd spread out flower petals, filling the room with a fresh fragrance that well overcame the smell of smoke and her cauldron. She hadn't time for decorations, but she had put a new tablecloth on the table upstairs, with fresh sage on the cabinet nearby to cleanse the air of impurities. 

Of course, Colette didn't notice any of it. She only had eyes for the big, heaping bamboo rice plate Marian had put out.

"These look really great. Are they really all for me?"

"Yep, eat up!" Marian said.

"Yummy!"

Colette dug in, and Marian watched her devouring enough food to put Sherman to shame. She really couldn't help herself—it was like she'd dosed herself in the love potion all over again. And all this feeling, like untamed magic was building in her, until she couldn't keep it anymore.

"Hee hee, I'm wooing you, Colette!

Wait, maybe she wasn't supposed to tell her plans until the heroes came and it was far too late to escape her shots and shots and lots and lots of shots. No matter! Colette blushed bright red, dropping her fork with a clatter against the almost empty plate.

"Marian—" Colette said between bites. She swallowed.

"I really mean it, I'll conquer the world if that's what it takes!"

Okay, she might conquer the world anyways. In the name of science, of course.

"Really?" Colette said. "For me?"

"Yep, and I'd hire enough cooks that you'd never be hungry, not even for a second," Marian said.

Colette flushed, and Marian recognized that look. She'd caught a glimpse in a mirror when she was coming down from the love potion, which wasn't nearly as mythical or wonderful as stories would have it.

If anything, instead of making her head cloudy, it made her head clearer to everything she'd always known.


End file.
